Michigan in the News

Finn Brunton, assistant professor of information, was interviewed on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition Saturday" about his research into spam email, the spam business, how it's become a criminal enterprise, and how people can protect themselves online.

A Reuters story about businesses and tax responsibility quoted Mark Mizruchi, professor of sociology and business administration, who contends in his new book that the forsaking of responsibility for the wider community is a big shift in the behavior of U.S. business and a key reason for the country's political and economic malaise.

Margaret Wooldridge, professor of mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering, told The New York Times that the trouble with flexible-fuel vehicles on the market today is that they are still mostly optimized for gasoline and not ethanol.

One of the major obstacles to growing new organs — replacement hearts, lungs and kidneys, for example — is the difficulty researchers face in building blood vessels to keep those tissues alive. In this video, Andrew Putnam, associate professor of biomedical engineering, explains how researchers may be able to build more consistently robust blood vessels.

Statewide tech startup program begins with several teams from U-MA new technology acceleration program will bring together university and community innovators from across the state — including seven teams involving U-M people — to help them explore the business opportunities around their technologies. Michigan I-Corps, a seven-week entrepreneurial training workshop, launches today.

University ranks seventh for Peace Corps Paul D. Coverdell FellowsU-M ranks No. 7 in the nation as a Peace Corps Paul D. Coverdell Fellows university in the 2013 rankings. The university has 20 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers enrolled in the Coverdell Fellows graduate program, which provides fellows with scholarships, academic credit and stipends to earn an advanced degree after completing their Peace Corps service.

Society of Fellows names nine new membersThe Michigan Society of Fellows has selected eight new fellows out of 896 applications to serve three-year appointments as postdoctoral scholars and assistant professors, beginning this fall. A ninth fellow will join the society in September 2014. The fellows were chosen for the importance and quality of their scholarship and for their interest in interdisciplinary work.

The Michigan Difference

A mission of thanks
Their parents earn as little as $2 a day, and they live in makeshift, one-room homes. But for seven days in October these 12 children in El Salvador received world-class cardiac care courtesy of a team headed by the U-M Health System. It was the second time the UMHS team traveled to the Central American country as part of an international collaborative sponsored by Gift of Life International. This time, the team trained a cardiac team in El Salvador on a variety of procedures and equipment so those doctors can provide similar care to the children in their country.